THE SECRET TO NURTURING INBOUND LEADS INTO CUSTOMERS

 

Lead nurturing actively engages a targeted group of prospects or leads by providing relevant, educational content at each stage of their journey through the buying process. It is extremely effective in moving prospects down the funnel to become paying customers. Personalization and timely follow-ups are key to seeing success in your lead nurturing strategy. Essentially, lead nurturing is providing the right content, at the right time, to the right person.

 

Why is Lead Nurturing Important?

The vast majority of inbound leads you receive will not be ready to make an immediate purchase when they convert, leaving you with nearly 90% of leads left on the table, untouched. Lead nurturing helps you to warm these leads up and bring them closer to purchasing from your company. Forrester discovered a 20% increase in sales opportunities from nurtured vs. non-nurtured leads.(Source: Forrester, 2014)  In short, your company cannot afford to leave leads unnurtured.

 

 

Which Lead Nurturing Tactics Work Best for Inbound Leads?

While there are many opportunities to nurture leads, we’ve uncovered the best tactics for the most impactful results. Let’s dive in:

1) Nurture Leads with Highly Targeted Content

Using targeted content for lead nurturing may seem obvious, but many marketers today have not mastered the skill. Why? Typically the content created is based on the sales cycle rather than personas. When you build your buyer personas and learn what their desires, needs, wants, and objectives are it is easier to deliver the right content to the individual at the right time in the sales process.

2) Don’t Get Stuck in an Email Rut

Did you know that inbound leads typically interact 10 times or more with your company before they become a closed customer? If you’re focused on nurturing your leads through email only, think twice about that strategy. Instead, decide how you can use other content types to nurture leads – your blog, social media, interactive content, conversational marketing tactics, and more are all available to you to nurture leads. However, don’t stop emailing leads. Expand your strategy to include other tactics.

3) Be Quick with Your Follow Up Emails

If you haven’t started automating your nurturing campaigns, it is time to get on the bandwagon. Leads that receive a follow-up email within the first five minutes after conversion are 21 times more likely to become qualified. So, email your leads as soon as possible after conversion for optimal ROI on your lead nurturing efforts.

4) Make it a Point to Use Personalization in ALL of Your Content

With the launch of Smart Content, Smart CTAs, and email personalization, taking your targeted lead nurturing tactics to the next level is a much simpler process than ever before. By using something as simple as a person’s first name in an email, or on a landing page, the conversion rate to the next stage in the buyer’s journey increases exponentially. To take it a step further, you can personalize your personas’ experience when they visit your website through Smart Content & CTAs. For example, if your persona has downloaded a specific white paper, you can show them content based on that interest and advertise with CTAs to indicate which step the lead should take next. It’s a no-brainer.

To sum up what we’ve talked about, remember to nurture leads through all channels with targeted content to the persona’s needs, wants, desires and objectives. This is the secret to delivering the right information, at the right time, to the right person.

What are you doing that works in your lead nurturing strategy? We’d love to hear about it in the comments!